


Edge

by spire_cx



Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-08
Updated: 2012-03-08
Packaged: 2017-11-26 01:29:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spire_cx/pseuds/spire_cx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>because Dongwoo can only bear so many burdens, Hoya takes them on himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Edge

Dongwoo is still dressed when Hoya gets out of the shower.

The outfits they were poured into today were hideous: red-brown-purple like a swollen flea, lopsided and littered with pointless accessories. Hoya's ensemble was even a size too big. He took it off the moment he got back to the hotel.

Not Dongwoo.

The event has been over for hours, but here he is, sitting at the desk in their room, hair still stiff with gel. He hasn't even taken his jacket off yet, with its faux fur accents and piles of shiny crap superglued to the shoulders.

Dongwoo had laughed once they were all dressed and standing together. "We look like anime characters," he giggled. He laughed all day, smiling for the few fans who had bothered to show up, effervescing his way through dinner, and cracking jokes the entire way back to the hotel.

And really, what does Hoya know, who is he to say: maybe Dongwoo actually _did_ find the outfits funny. But they're here in pregnant silence now, Dongwoo sitting still as a stone in his stupid anime costume, and nothing's funny anymore.

Hoya is pretty sure there wasn't anything funny in the first place.

Dongwoo is staring intently at something he's turning over in his hands. He doesn't say a word as Hoya moves about the room, pulling on his pajamas, drying his hair, setting an alarm for tomorrow morning. He doesn't even look up when Hoya stands beside him and peers over his shoulder at the object of his attention.

It's a toy, of course. Dozens of miniature plastic desserts, each no bigger than a coin, are arrayed across the desk like a shrunken buffet. Tiny slices of pie and tiny plates; tiny cups of tea on tiny saucers; a tiny basket with a tiny napkin and tiny croissants to put inside.

"What are those?" Hoya asks.

"Toys," Dongwoo says, "gifts."

There weren't very many fans at the event this afternoon. Maybe it was the venue, maybe it was the weather, maybe it was their outfits, maybe their star had already risen and fallen here—who knows, but the showing had not been good. Hoya usually came away from Japanese fanmeets with a veritable avalanche of gifts, but today even his haul was paltry. He knows it's a shitty thing to think about a bandmate, but he's surprised Dongwoo got any gifts at all.

The little pastries look like they belong to a dollhouse, though Hoya knows they don't. Dongwoo is putting them together and setting them in a tidy line, arranging things carefully with the tips of his neatly-manicured fingernails.

The miniatures make Hoya feel old and hopeless, but it was a good gift for Dongwoo. Clean, complete, simple. 

Controllable.

Hoya looks down at him, slouched in the hotel's cheap plastic chair. Pale and vulnerable, the gentle slope of his shoulder peeks out from under his jacket as if through a gap in a great suit of armor.

"Are you okay?" Hoya asks.

Dongwoo is putting together a tiny pie. He turns to Hoya and flashes a broad smile.

"I'm fine."

But he's sagging as if his clothes weigh a thousand tons and moving with an ugly lethargy, and Hoya thought they were done with all this—all these stupid pretenses of invincibility and fearlessness. Hoya wants to ask him why he lies like that: why he still makes an emotional martyr of himself, even when they're here, like this, alone with each other in the middle of the night.

But when he opens his mouth, that's not what comes out.

"Do you want some tea?" he asks.

He's an idiot and a coward, still, even now.

Dongwoo smiles at him again. "No thanks."

He plays with the miniature desserts for a long time. The pieces make small sounds against each other that slice through the quiet: cakes rattling on little stands, plastic coffee sliding into mugs, scoops of ice cream snapping into tiny bowls.

Hoya brushes his teeth, lays out his clothes for tomorrow, and packs the cosmetics scattered around the sink. It's past midnight when he closes the blinds and slides the deadbolt home on the door.

"You should sleep," he says.

Dongwoo shrugs. "I'm not tired."

"That's not true," Hoya says. "You're exhausted. Go to bed."

"No, I won't be able to sleep. It's okay."

It's almost funny, Hoya thinks, how stupid they both are. He wants to laugh when he thinks about how many times they've fought these battles with themselves: selfless Dongwoo, so eager to sacrifice, so willing to suffer in silence, and passive Howon, so content to just let things happen around him, so quick to surrender to old fears of heartache, attachment, and abandon.

It would be so easy to just let passive Howon win. Today would be easier, tomorrow would be easier, perhaps the next day would be easier too. But there's something bigger on the line here than _how he feels tomorrow_. This fight is his responsibility. Passive Howon has no place in the future they're carving out for themselves. This is his role in their effort.

And he knows he could never live with himself, if he ever let Dongwoo suffer alone.

"You can sleep with me," Hoya says, "if you want."

Dongwoo looks up. He's still wearing makeup from earlier, eyes smoky with the last shadows of eyeliner. His smile has disappeared and his face is drawn and pale, a poor rendition of himself, sloppily sketched—but his stare is like that of a startled animal, dark and wild, crackling with fear.

Hoya makes himself stare unblinkingly back.

When Dongwoo stands he bumps against the desk, making plastic donuts clatter in their trays.

"Are you done in the bathroom?" he asks.

"Yeah." 

Dongwoo stalks off, and closes the door too loudly behind him.

While Dongwoo is in the shower Hoya lays on top of his bed and waits. He knows he is waiting because he can feel himself sinking, sliding into the strange reality that exists in the cracks between their normal days.

Around him, the sterile hotel room turns warm, lambent, and soft. At some point he closes his eyes. He dozes off, and has a shallow dream about animals in cages.

He wakes to the feeling of the bed dipping with Dongwoo's weight. When Hoya opens his eyes he sees Dongwoo sitting beside him, his shape towering, the hard lines of his shoulders tracing a sharp silhouette in the low yellow light.

"Hi," Dongwoo says.

Hoya rubs his eyes. "Hi."

Dongwoo seems renewed. His skin, finally clean of makeup and sweat, is flushed and glowing. He's combed his wet hair straight back, probably more for practical purposes than aesthetic ones, but it's decidedly attractive. It makes him look older: like he's seen and done more than Hoya knows, like the line between desire and necessity has become a vague shadow in the sand.

Dongwoo shifts his weight; Hoya's hand falls against his bare thigh.

He notices that Dongwoo's not wearing very much: small designer-brand briefs, a black tank that shows off his broad shoulders, so sheer that even in the low light Hoya can see the dark circles of his nipples through the fabric. It's ridiculous, and for a moment Hoya feels embarrassed for him in all his desperation. He imagines Dongwoo digging through his suitcase for something sexy, despite not actually feeling sexy at all—because he needs this so bad, and thinks Hoya needs convincing.

He puts a hand on Hoya's chest. When Hoya does not remove it, Dongwoo takes a deep breath, bites his lip, and runs his fingertips up and down Hoya's sternum. His touch is firm and eager, and in it Hoya can feel the blunt edge of his sexuality: freshly forged, imprecise, demanding.

"Are you trying to seduce me?" Hoya asks.

Dongwoo stares at him for a long moment, his eyes black and searching.

"Maybe," he says. "Is it working?"

Hoya moves his hand to the inside of Dongwoo's thigh.

Dongwoo leans down and kisses him.

The first time they did this was the day Woohyun and Sunggyu fought after an interview, a full-out shouting match that only Sungjong's hands, small and innocent on Sunggyu's chest, prevented from escalating into a brawl. It was Dongwoo who eventually talked Sunggyu down from the ledge of his proud, shortsighted rage; Dongwoo who picked up the sheets of paper Woohyun had thrown across the floor; Dongwoo who insisted they all go out for _samgyeopsal_ after apologies had been exchanged, despite the defeated looks on everyone's faces.

Hoya was not shocked when he found Dongwoo crying in the bathroom that night. Terribly incompetent at the art of comfort, the best he could do was sit next to him and hold his hand and tell him that everything would be fine. Dongwoo put his head on Hoya's shoulder and bawled into his sweater, great, ugly sobs that made Hoya's heart skip beats.

It's so hard, Dongwoo cried, it's so lonely.

Like a colossal ship easing into port, something important slid into place in Hoya's head then. In a strange and breathtaking moment of coherence, he understood. The revelations were staggering, and long overdue: everything Dongwoo was, everything he did, all the burdens he shouldered, the fathomless depths of his devotion.

And all of a sudden his entire body ached, a deep pain resonating in the marrow of his bones. He struggled for breath; he choked back tears. It was all he could do to pull Dongwoo into his arms and bury his face in Dongwoo's hair.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I'm so sorry," because he was always so blind, and so fucking dense, and Dongwoo deserved so much more than that. "What I can do?" he asked.

Then Dongwoo kissed him, and Hoya could have sworn the earth shattered.

The rest was inevitable, as Hoya was overtaken by the tide of his affection, pulled under by a force he was powerless to resist. Dongwoo was wide open, as if he had been waiting for someone—anyone—to do this. He invited every touch and encouraged every kiss; he guided Hoya's hands around his body; he pulled their clothes off as if they were on fire; he bent over the sink of his own accord and ordered Hoya to fuck him. So Hoya did, and if the world had not already shattered, surely then it crumbled to pieces: feeling Dongwoo's spindly legs shaking, meeting his gaze in the mirror, watching his hands grasping at the faucet, the knobs of his knuckles white with effort.

Embarrassingly, they both cried afterward, feeling guilty, feeling stupid, feeling clean. Knowing they had found an answer, even if it was a painful one.

Hoya knows that the longer it goes on the more likely it is they'll be caught. He lets it keep happening anyway: because there's no other choice, because a big part of him doesn't care, and because he can't fend off the way Dongwoo makes oceans surge inside him now, moving mountains with his gaze.

So they come together like this. Late at night, on days when everything has gone wrong, in scalding hot showers, on the table in the studio after everyone has gone home, in their beds on rare occasions of privacy, once even in the back of the van, drunk, in a stunning display of bad decision-making.

Tonight they're tangled together on a too-small hotel bed somewhere in Japan, grinding against each other, gasping and groaning into kisses, hands moving hard and purposeful between their bodies.

"Missed you," Dongwoo says. He's laying between Hoya's legs, rolling his hips in wide circles, sending shocks through Hoya's body every time their cocks press together.

Hoya missed this, too. It's been too long, too many hard months since they've been able to hold each other like this. He can feel the tension falling off his back in sheets, coaxed away by Dongwoo's questing hands.

"Yeah," he breathes, "me too."

Dongwoo sighs against his cheek and kisses along the line of his jaw. His lips are feather-light as he moves down Hoya's neck, sucking at his skin, prickly with stubble. He mouths at the hard ridge of his collarbone as his hand wanders down the side of Hoya's body, sending tendrils of anticipation winding through Hoya's stomach. 

Dongwoo begins to tug experimentally at the waistband of Hoya's boxers; he makes it so obvious, what he wants.

Hoya puts a hand on Dongwoo's head and pushes down.

Dongwoo moans, a throaty sound, and lets Hoya push him between his legs, shimmying down the bed until he's face to face with the tent in Hoya's boxers. Fingers trembling, he pulls them down just enough to free his erection, thick and pink.

The others like to tease Dongwoo about his big mouth and conspicuous oral fixation—but the others have never had his mouth around their dicks, and Hoya thinks they'd change their tune pretty fast if Dongwoo ever deigned to alter that situation. It's no wonder he isn't offended by their mockery; the boy has a gift.

Hoya watches in awe as Dongwoo unabashedly worships his cock with his mouth. He kisses at the head and drags his lips up and down the shaft; they catch on the foreskin and slide in the slick of pre-cum pooling in the slit. Something deep inside Hoya begins to tighten, some momentous mainspring twisting up, and it takes every ounce of self-restraint he has to keep himself from bucking up into Dongwoo's eager mouth.

When Dongwoo finally sucks Hoya in he takes him all at once, humming in delight. He begins to massage his entire length with the flat of his tongue and Hoya simply melts away. All his senses blur together as Dongwoo works him, bobbing steadily on his cock like a buoy on a placid sea.

There's nothing fake about the way Dongwoo's brow furrows and eyelashes flutter and voice escapes in breathy moans: he loves doing this, it's clear, and the knowledge that he'd like nothing more than for Hoya to twist his hands in his hair and fuck his mouth for the rest of the night makes Hoya feel drunk and hazy with desire.

Not that he ever would do such a thing. Just this way is perfect: watching Dongwoo suck him slowly, all the way up and all the way down, pink lips glistening in the light.

"You're really beautiful," Hoya says.

Dongwoo looks up at him, eyes unreadable. Locks of his damp hair are falling forward across Hoya's stomach, tickling in the dip of his bellybutton. Hoya reaches down and pushes them out of the way of Dongwoo's gaze, smoothing them back behind his ear.

"I mean it," he says, and he does mean it, though he knows he doesn't say it enough, and that when he does he sounds insincere. He's never been good at giving compliments. "You're gorgeous."

He puts his hand on Dongwoo's head, touch light and gentle, and watches his eyes fall closed. Dongwoo exhales and swallows the last inches of Hoya's cock, burying his nose in the wiry forest of his pubic hair.

It's incredible, and Hoya is so tempted to just hold his head down and come hard against the back of his throat. But Dongwoo deserves more than that. He tugs on a lock of his hair and tells him to stop.

Dongwoo sits up and wipes his mouth with the tips of his fingers. He's breathing hard, skin flushed, lips stained a wanton red, his chest rising and falling as if he's just run up a flight of stairs.

"I want to make you feel good," Hoya says, tongue feeling thick. "Tell me what to do."

Dongwoo stares down at him. Hoya opens his mouth to say something, to tell him he'll do anything, to tell him all he need do is ask, but Dongwoo speaks first.

"Wait here," he says, and climbs out from between Hoya's legs.

He pads off to the bathroom, loping like an ungainly animal, and comes back with a small bottle in his hand. Standing next to the bed, he pulls his shirt over his head and his briefs down off his legs, freeing his long, narrow cock from the confines of clothing. He tosses the expensive garments on the floor, his movement casual and nonchalant. His body is amazing, even like this—especially like this, Hoya thinks, when he's not showing it off, when he's not trying to be sexy, when he's naked and natural and moving with his own accidental grace.

He sits on the edge of the bed and pulls Hoya's boxers the rest of the way off before upending the bottle of lotion over Hoya's crotch. It's cold, and Hoya hisses as Dongwoo spreads it over his cock. Once satisfied with his work, Dongwoo swings one leg over Hoya's body and straddles his lap. He pours more lotion into his palm, tosses the bottle onto the nightstand, and reaches behind himself.

Hoya can't see what exactly Dongwoo is doing, but it's easy to guess as he watches his mouth fall open in pleasure. He remembers suddenly the time they did it against the door of the bathroom: when he got on his knees, pulled one of Dongwoo's legs over his shoulder, and finger-fucked him into mindless oblivion while sucking him off. The memory makes him lightheaded as he thinks about the way Dongwoo felt inside, the way he swallowed him up, the noises he made when Hoya curled his fingers and _pushed_...

His heart leaps into his throat when Dongwoo's hand closes around his cock. Dongwoo slides the blunt tip against his skin; it finds the furrow of his waiting hole like a compass finding north, and Hoya hardly has time to prepare himself for the sensation before Dongwoo settles onto him, sitting down on his cock.

How many times has Hoya fucked him, by now? At least a dozen—but it's still breathtaking, every single time, the feeling of Dongwoo letting him in.

He's tight like a vise, hot and so slick inside; Hoya slides home easily, meeting no resistance. Dongwoo takes him like a lock takes its key, and fuck, Hoya feels so stupid, but it makes him want to cry, how perfect this is.

Dongwoo throws his head back and starts to laugh.

"Something funny?" Hoya breathes.

Dongwoo shakes his head and starts moving his hips in circles.

"Oh, god, Hoya," he gasps, incoherent. His eyes drift closed again.

Already his head is rolling back across his shoulders and his legs are starting to shake—Hoya reaches out and takes his arms in his hands to steady him.

Dongwoo starts moving up and down, riding him in long, deep strokes. He's moaning and panting and it's all Hoya can do to try to keep breathing, to keep the fire inside him contained and under control.

It's not long before Dongwoo has collapsed into a groaning mess in his arms, making starved, desperate noises and biting at the pillow as Hoya thrusts up into him.

Hoya thinks about the plastic miniatures on the desk across the room, thoughtful gifts from dedicated fans. What would those fans say, if they could see Dongwoo now? What would his own fans say? He almost laughs out loud at the thought. It's thrilling in ways he's never imagined possible: knowing that they do this in such secret, knowing that this space is theirs and theirs alone. It's probably the last secret Hoya has left.

He feels Dongwoo's lips against his ear then, and a shiver runs up his spine.

"Fuck me," Dongwoo says, his voice all air and breath, "please fuck me."

He's boneless and compliant as Hoya turns them over and lays Dongwoo out, posing him like an artist would his tableau. He kneels between his thighs, pulls Dongwoo into his lap, and pushes back in, swift and hard. Dongwoo opens his mouth in a silent sob; his back arches like a tightly-drawn bow. When Hoya begins to thrust again, he makes an incredible noise: long, thin, far off and distant.

A voice in the back of Hoya's head reminds him that Sunggyu and Woohyun are sleeping next door, right on the other side of the wall. They're probably less than a meter away. The voice wants him to tell Dongwoo to shut up. Hoya won't, of course—won't ever tell him to be quiet, will let him yell and moan and wake everyone if that's what he needs. Because this is the least of what he deserves: to be able to let go, if only for a little while.

He reaches down and puts his thumb against Dongwoo's lips.

Dongwoo glances up at him, eyes fierce, and greedily sucks the proffered finger into his mouth. Hoya quickens his pace in response, and on every thrust Dongwoo bites down hard. His teeth are sharp and dig deep into Hoya's skin, into the bones of his knuckles, and it hurts, it hurts so bad. But this is how it should be. This is his pain, his small share.

Hoya watches Dongwoo's body tense, the defined muscles down his chest and stomach clenching, his bright red cock in his hand, its gentle, perfect arch, and all concern for the world outside their door flies into the wind. He removes his hand from Dongwoo's mouth and pulls Dongwoo's legs up and over his shoulders. He leans forward, deepening his angle as he folds himself over Dongwoo's body.

"Yes, harder," Dongwoo demands, "harder harder harder."

Hoya can't help but comply. 

He braces himself against the headboard and starts slamming hard and fast into Dongwoo.

Dongwoo is being decidedly loud now, moaning Hoya's name with every labored breath, but Hoya can't bring himself to care. His world has collapsed onto the head of a pin, everything beyond their bodies has fallen away, and all that's left is the two of them, fucking: the rhythmic clap of his hips against Dongwoo's thighs, Dongwoo's arms around his shoulders, his breath against his neck, and the sound of his voice, beautiful, so beautiful like this. _Howon, Howon, Howon, Howon._

But still, even now, he knows what Dongwoo needs from him. His chest goes tight at the thought; his throat closes up.

"It's okay," he says. "You can do it, baby. Come on. I'm here."

Dongwoo whines beneath him.

"I'm _here_."

Dongwoo inhales and is suddenly impossibly tight; his body goes stiff and his breath goes into overdrive and Hoya knows these things for what they are. He's almost gone too, and the knowledge that Dongwoo is with him, that Hoya brought him here, is dizzying: a violent shove toward the looming edge.

He tries to hold it off, to attempt stamina now that they have the time and the space to make use of it, but it's a hopeless endeavor. Dongwoo's nails are digging into his back and he's calling him by his name and no amount of self-control can postpone it any longer: every muscle in his body tightens and orgasm overtakes him in a dark rush, surging down onto him like a storm into a valley.

Hoya thinks he manages to be quiet, but Dongwoo doesn't even try. He buries his mouth in Hoya's hair and cries out, a strangled, wordless sound, tortured, relieved, the sound of catharsis. Hoya can feel Dongwoo clenching around him, milking him dry; his own spasms rack his body, violent, sudden, his cock recoiling like the report of a gun.

Eventually, things in the air drift back to the ground. The dark fog dissipates, and the room around them comes back into focus.

Hoya sits up. Dongwoo puts his hands over his face. He lies there, shaking and breathing hard, his legs still hooked over Hoya's arms, for a long time.

"Are you okay?" Hoya asks.

"Yeah."

"You sure? I didn't hurt you?"

Dongwoo sighs. "No, I'm okay. Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

Hoya pulls out and wipes down his cock with his shirt. Already he can feel the heartache seeping in, bright and sharp. He doesn't know what it is, exactly: guilt, anger, helplessness, all of the above. He wishes there were someone to blame for all of this; he wishes there were a switch he could flip somewhere to make it all better. But there's no way to turn this cycle off, and they are all complicit in its perpetuation. It will continue as long as Infinite continues. Because Dongwoo is an essential cog in their great emotional machine, the foundation of their monument—but fuck if Hoya doesn't want to knock it all down at times like this.

Dongwoo spends a long time in the bathroom cleaning off, and Hoya almost falls asleep, listening to the sink running, waiting for him to come back. Dongwoo turns off the lights before he climbs back into bed, and lays out alongside Hoya's body. The bed is too small for them, but it's better than sleeping apart.

He puts a hand on Hoya's stomach.

"Are you tired?" he asks.

Yes, of course Hoya's tired, and they have a long day tomorrow. Their flight is early, and there are precious few hours left before they need to be up and ready to go. They both need their sleep.

Hoya turns to face him. In the darkness, Dongwoo's eyes are bright and expectant. Something twists painfully in Hoya's chest; but that is how it should be.

"No," Hoya says, and leans forward to kiss him.

Because Dongwoo bears so many burdens.

This is the least he can do.


End file.
